I recently had the pleasure of touring the Granite Frontiers exhibit in LA with Bonnie Kamps and Mary and Mark Powell. Very cool to see her in the Diamond parade photo upthread. DR was also present and Bob's name came up frequently in conversation.

The Diamond FA is huge on the adventure scale and just one on a long list of classics for both climbers. Bob and Dave's first excellent adventure!

Besides seeing him at Tahquitz in 1959-1960, I remember Dave Rearick from the Riverside County Campground in Idyllwild where he would do such things as walk on his hands for long distances and recite Lewis Carroll poems, "You're getting old father William said the youth to the man..." I actually more or less memorized the poem from listening to Dave but have never been able to walk on my hands. He was at Cal Tech then, I believe. He and Bob Kamps were really a fit together.

My thoughts of the Diamond climb back in 1960: Before Kamps and Rearick went off to Colorado for that venture, they climbed the ugly cliff above Camp 4, the Camp 4 Terror. I wondered at the time why they would spend time on such an ugly climb for a first ascent when so many other things were around. When I heard about the Diamond, it became apparent that the Terror was a rehersal for the Diamond. Even the shape of the cliff on which the Terror ascended was a diamond shape.

Yes my dear friend Higgins and I climbed many routes
around Boulder and Eldorado. We climbed Athlete's Feat
and Vertigo, for example, and Supremacy Crack, and really
another dozen or more good climbs, with the fun highlight
being Soarks, in blistering heat, on the back of the Third
Flatiron... where like cave men we hammered on a bolt with
a stone, having forgotten the hammer...

I cherish the memory of every climb Tom and I did together,
and not once did we fail to have fun, in Tuolumne, or Yosemite,
or Colorado...

We have that special link of Rearick and Kamps, our respective mentors and friends.

I mentioned this in another thread, but it bears repeating. The marvellous Bob Kamps is gone of course, but Dave Rearick suffered a stroke a couple of years ago after a heavy day of yard work. His right side was affected and he has not regained those functions to what he would consider satisfactory levels. He resides in the Meridian Retirement Center in Boulder and can be reached there by telephone or letter; he does not use a computer.

Dave was a member of the mathematics faculty at the University of Colorado from the early 1960s to the 1990s, with a specialty in number theory and analytical number theory. He recieved his PhD from Cal Tech.

After he stopped climbing he became an exceptional distance road bicycle enthusiast, in terrific aerobic condition. He is now in his mid 80s. I have known him since the late 1950s.

Kamps and Rearick, two of my heroes as a "kid' in the Valley. Admiration, respect and a hell of lot of awe. Fortunate to climb with Kamps but never had the opportunity to climb with Dave. I do remember his unique ability to walk around Camp 4 in a hand stand position. What a team, what a team!